


Round the Twist

by realismandromance



Category: Original Work
Genre: Drama, Gen, One Shot, POV First Person, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4695887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/realismandromance/pseuds/realismandromance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Have you ever ... ever felt like this? Have strange things happened - are you going 'round the twist?' A story about writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round the Twist

> _Have you ever ... ever felt like this? Have strange things happened ... are you going 'round the twist?_

Those same seventeen words, repeated in the annoying jingle, played over and over in my head until I wanted to scream in frustration. How could you write with something like that winding you up and making you dizzy? I'd been sitting in my study for a long time, struggling with the beginning of a new story. One of my teachers back in high school had always said that the best way to begin a story was with a very good opening sentence. And I couldn't find one.

> _'The world froze in absolute silence, everybody's eyes glued to their TV as they watched as one woman signed a very important piece of paper ...'_

No. That wouldn't work.

> _'Elizabeth watched, stupefied, as the ground opened up and her little sister was sucked inside a great gaping hole ...'_

OK. That wasn't too bad. But where to go from there?

Right at that moment was when the phone call came. I groaned, feeling so unbelievably tired that the effort it took to reach across my desk and pick up the phone seemed impossibly hard. But with a heroic effort, I grabbed it and answered.

'Hello? Susannah here; who's this?'

The person on the other end, whoever she was (it was a feminine voice), spoke without preamble.

'Suze, Mrs Leach died on Tuesday.'

Well, that was blunt. Who the hell was this, anyway?

'This is Jan. You know, Jan Winters, from high school back in Doncaster? Mrs Leach was our year seven English teacher. She died in a nursing home on Tuesday. The funeral's tomorrow.'

Now I remembered Jan, but not Mrs Leach. The name grated on my brain uncomfortably, but I couldn't think why. Mrs Leach ... Mrs Leach ... A memory wallowed to the front of my brain, and I struggled to recall it:

> _'Suze? What's this?' Mrs Leach came out from nowhere and I quickly slammed the notebook shut, shoving my pen into my pocket uncapped. 'What's what, Mrs Leach?'_
> 
> _'May I please look at that book, Suze?' she asked, holding out her hand. It was ostensibly a request, though there was no question about it._
> 
> _I handed it over helplessly. What else to do? Mrs Leach opened it and read the first few pages - written in smudgy blue ink - slowly, while I studied the ground so no one would see me blushing self-consciously._
> 
> _'Suze,' Mrs Leach began, giving the book back to me once I had averted my eyes from an ant carrying a large wholemeal crumb from someone's sandwich, 'this is really quite good, you know. You should write more.' She, who usually never minced her words, was being quite frank today. I shrugged embarrassedly and quickly stuffed the book away in my bag, got up up and headed inside. 'I'm probably late for Maths,' I called back, by way of an excuse._

My first critique on my own writing. She'd never said a word after that - though maybe, I thought guiltily, she was embarrassed as well by my hasty brush-off.

* * *

> _Have you ever ... ever felt like this? Have strange things happened - are you going 'round the twist?_

It was pouring the day of Mrs Leach's funeral. Not that that had any bearing on it, really. The memorial service was held indoors, and it stopped raining before it was time for the burial. I found the ceremony very ... odd, for lack of another word. Bit ridiculous, really, since I'd never been to a funeral before and didn't know what to expect. Or couldn't remember one. My great-grandmother had died when I was about four, but I couldn't remember anything of that. Now, a teacher was different. You couldn't talk to a teacher the way you could talk to your best friend or even your mother. Teachers had their heads full of rules and regulations, and when you tried to force them out off it, they scolded you for being rude and maybe gave you detention.

So, maybe I  _was_  going 'round the twist', as Paul Jennings put it, but I could have sworn that later, when I was at Jan's place for a 'long time, no see' reunion chat over a cuppa, I saw Mrs Leach, quite clearly, sitting in the chair between Jan and me, the one in front of the plate of lamingtons. She smiled, and her voice echoed in my head weirdly, though her lips didn't move:

 _'Suze. This is really quite good, you know. You should write more.'_  Then my brain caught up with my eyes and I blinked. Mrs Leach was gone ... not that I was going to believe that she had ever been there in the first place.

'What's up?' asked Jan curiously.

I shook my head, berating myself for not allowing myself enough sleep and rest from writing. It was all catching up to me now. 'Nothing. I'm all right.'

I went home soon afterwards, upon which I made a beeline for my desk. When I looked down at all the crossed-out sentences and mangled sheets of paper, I remembered what I had been struggling with when I left. What to write about? All my life I'd heard the same advice:  _Write about what you know_  ... I grinned cheekily, grabbing a ballpoint pen and started writing:

> _Have you ever ... ever felt like this? Have strange things happened ... are you going 'round the twist?_
> 
> _Those same seventeen words, repeated in the annoying jingle, played over and over in my head until I wanted to scream in frustration ..._


End file.
